Tag Archives: Review

It is not often that one’s book is reviewed by a sitting finance minister. But these are strange times. On 4th November Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe took the trouble to review my ‘Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A brief history of capitalism” for The Irish Times. To my utter surprise, he had some exceptionally complimentary things to say about my little book, for which I am – naturally –...

“A gripping tale of an outspoken intellectual’s sudden immersion in high-stakes politics,… an attempt to divine why smart, seemingly decent politicians and bureaucrats would continue pushing a pointlessly cruel approach long after its pointlessness had become clear.” “Varoufakis wasn’t always trying to make waves. And he seems to have approached his chief task with great seriousness.” Why the Greek Bailout Went...

Doug Henwood’s long review of my Adults in the Room follows. Plus a radio interview with Doug for BEHIND THE NEWS. https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Behind-the-News-17_10_12-on-Adults-in-the-Room-.mp3FINANCE MINISTERS RARELY BECOME CELEBRITIES. Sure, there was a moment in the 1990s when Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary Robert Rubin came close. But that was because...

The Ins and Outs of Europe’s Deep Establishment By Stan Persky I. ONE EVENING in spring 2015, a finance minister walks into a bar in Washington, DC, looking for some insider advice. No, this is not one of those man-walks-into-a-bar-type jokes. On this occasion, the man walking into a bar is Yanis Varoufakis, the then-newly-minted finance minister of virtually bankrupt Greece, and the person with whom he’s having...

Not many authors write a book in nine days, and fewer still are likely to announce it in the prologue. Yanis Varoufakis has no qualms about doing so in this brief history of capitalism, structured around the device of talking to his daughter, Xenia, not long a teenager. It was first published a few years ago, when she was even younger, and has been updated for British readers following a further week’s writing....

Yanis Varoufakis begins his account of his half year as Greece’s finance minister in the left populist Syriza government (Adults in the Room, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) with a description of a meeting with Larry Summers. According to Varoufakis, Summers explains that there are two types of politicians. There are those who are on the inside and play by the rules. They can just occasionally accomplish things by...

Yanis Varoufakis, der linke Star, erzählt, wie die EU sein Land zu einer Kolonie gemacht hat. Er hat recht von Alpha bis Omega. Yanis Varoufakis, der wilde Marxist, der kluge Ökonom, kritisiert in seinem neuen Buch die Europäische Union. Bild: Keystone Der frühere griechische Finanzminister Yanis Varoufakis hat vor Kurzem ein Buch vorgelegt («Die ganze Geschichte: Meine Auseinandersetzung mit Europas...

Reading Varoufakis: Frustrated Strategist of Greek Financial Deterrence (click here for the original site) by Adam Tooze  Adam Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute. He is currently at work on a history of the global financial crisis 2008-2018, which will appear in time for the anniversary in September 2018. Adults in the...

This is a superbly written account of the struggle to alleviate the austerity imposed upon the Greek people by the eurozone. Greece, argues Varoufakis, has been put in a debtors’ prison and robbed of autonomy and dignity for the indefinite future. Critics would argue that he failed as finance minister in 2015 because he was insufficiently politic. More plausibly, he could never have succeeded, such were the...

[embedded content] Press review on the Andrew Marr show, BBC1 tv 29th January 2017